The EES Archive
The Archive is a unique record of the Society’s historical contribution to the field of Egyptology from the founding of the EEF (as we were named until 1919) in 1882. A brief history of the Society is available here.
Visiting our collections
This announcement has been a long time in the making! Our archive and library are now closed to visitors until 2028 while we redevelop our London office. You can find out more about our ‘Building the Future’ campaign here.
While we realise this may be inconvenient, you can continue to engage with Egyptian cultural heritage with us through our various courses and lectures.
Also, much of our archive is digitised and publicly available to view on our Flickr. There is significant material not on Flickr that has been digitised, and researchers will be able to view a comprehensive list of digitised archive material on the archives section of our website. We are planning on having a “hot desk” at the Petrie Museum where researchers can recall archive material to, but expenses will need to be covered by the researcher and we strongly encourage planning visits for 2028 where possible.
Unfortunately, our library will not be accessible for the duration of the closure period.
I hope you can appreciate that this is a very exciting time for the EES, and that redeveloping our premises at Doughty Mews will allow us to safeguard and make our collections accessible for the future.
Ordinarily, the EES Archive is freely accessible to researchers by prior appointment. Thanks to raising enough funds to start our Building the Future project, we are now temporarily closed to redevelop our premises over 2026-2028. Please check our Opening Times for further information. You should notify the archivist at least one month prior to your preferred visiting date to ensure that we can book you an appointment. To arrange a visit, please complete an archive material request form and email it to [email protected] as soon as possible to discuss your research and scheduling with the Collections Manager.
Some records preserved within the collections are particularly fragile; please ensure that you have read our handling guide on the request form prior to your arrival.
Reproduction requests and fees
Simple copies of our digitised materials can be requested using our form here. If you wish to publish material from our Collections, then you must request permission and pay a reproduction fee. Instructions for requesting permission to reproduce or disseminate material from the Society’s collections can be found here.
Related collections
A number of other institutions hold material connected with the Society, related people, and the sites explored since our founding in 1882. These include:
The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London (materials relating to sites and people, particularly those related to W M F Petrie)
The Griffith Institute, Oxford (materials relating to sites and people, including watercolours by Howard Carter, and notebooks and journals of early explorers)
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (materials relating to the Society’s American Branch, including the distribution of artefacts from archaeological sites in Egypt)
The British Museum, London (materials relating to distribution of artefacts from archaeological sites in Egypt, and documents relating to the Society’s co-founder Reginald Stuart Poole)
Somerville College, Oxford (materials relating to the Society’s founder, Amelia Edwards including a number of original watercolours)
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva (materials relating to sites and people, particularly those related to É Naville)